Remittances from RP workers up 13.5%

Remittances from RP workers up 13.5%

MANILA: Dollar remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFW) rose 13.5 per cent in the first two months of the year, helping keep the peso stable, the central bank said Sunday.

Filipino workers from abroad remitted a total of US$1.059 billion in the January-February period, up from $933 million in the same months last year.

The central bank said the inflow from the overseas workers helped the peso appreciate to a 13-month high of 49 to the dollar since last month.

Last year, the OFW remittance went down 8.1 per cent to $5.56 billion from $6.05 billion the previous year as the number of Filipinos working abroad also registered a drop.

In 2001, there were 100,000 less Filipinos deployed overseas from 4.8 million a year ago, according to a survey by the Commission on Filipino Overseas. --dpa